Antony Lentin, in his book about Sir Edgar Speyer (the German-born, Overstrand-resident financier and philanthropist, who was found guilty of "being disaffected and disloyal to His Majesty" by a Committee of enquiry in 1921), writes:

"Even literature played its part in the vendetta [against Speyer]. It has been suggested that in his classic spy-thriller of 1915, The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan may have had Edgar in mind in the character of Appleton, the German agent."

Oh, interesting, I thought. I've never read this, even though it's something of a classic, and there it is, available for nothing on Project Gutenberg.

Buchan began writing his famous spy story shortly after Britain entered World War I. It became a hit, "not least among soldiers at the front: 'It is just the kind of fiction for here,' one officer wrote to him. It is thought that editions still bearing a dustjacket are rare because most of them were lost in the mud of France."

Spy mania had been building in the UK over the previous decade, with at least 300 espionage novels going into print between 1901 and 1914. Clearly, there's a sort of endless loop in action here, with very real political anxieties (about shifting power and perceived vulnerability) feeding into an appetite for conspiratorial tales in which bad things happen because of wicked hidden hands, but ultimately the good guys triumph.

According to the National Archives site, "The truth was more prosaic. A small number of spies employed by the German navy were active in pre-war Britain. But between August 1911 and July 1914, the War Office's counter-espionage department (known today as MI5) arrested just 10 suspects. Britain's own attempts to establish a spy network in Germany met with similarly little success."

Nevertheless, perception shapes substance: "The triumph -- even in the highest government circles -- of journalistic fantasy over mundane reality had immediate repercussions when war broke out in August 1914... Although 21 real German spies were arrested on 4 August, thousands of imaginary acts of espionage [among them activities connected with Sea Marge, Speyer's Overstrand property] were reported to credulous police and military authorities... In reality, the wartime operations of German espionage in Britain under Gustav Steinhauer were limited and largely unsuccessful. Between August 1914 and September 1917, only 31 German spies were arrested on British soil, 19 of whom were sentenced to death and a further 10 imprisoned. Enemy spy activity thereafter was so negligible that no further espionage trials took place during the war."

(Eleven of the convicted spies, incidentally, were executed at the Tower of London, a venue chosen for its symbolic effect.)

"Spy fever" also existed in Germany: "As in other locales, there were very few convictions, suggesting this was mainly an imaginary danger."

Anyway, back to Buchan. As the New Statesman's review of a biography of Buchan points out, many of his novels -- along with other contemporary examples of this genre -- are pretty much unreadable today. But The Thirty-Nine Steps is a notable exception. It has sold millions of copies, and is still in print.

Buchan, the review continues, played a key role in the development of the contemporary spy novel: "Early exponents of the genre -- Joseph Conrad, Erskine Childers, Somerset Maugham -- understood the allure of espionage but it was Buchan who really developed many of its significant tropes: the innocent man, condemned and on the run; the deliberate factoring-in of contemporary history; villainous secret organisations as adversaries; the individual pitted against mysterious state power, and so forth." All this constitutes what many would recognize as "Buchanesque".

Steps is a ripping yarn, whose affable and unflappable hero, Richard Hannay -- a 37-year-old migrant returning from southern Africa, where he has made his "pile" in mining -- had been looking forward to spending the rest of his days in the motherland. Alas, when he gets there, he finds it excruciatingly boring. So when Franklin P. Scudder, an amateur investigator, ends up murdered in Hannay's flat, our young colonial is very much up for the adventure that unfolds.

Hannay proves to be adept at outwitting the German spies who have up to now been running rings around the British authorities. In a series of escapades, he manages to talk, disguise, run, climb, fight, and bomb his way out of trouble. It's all totally unbelievable, but that's not the point. What matters is the triumph of "good" at the end, with plenty of suspense on the way.

Of course, the thrust of the novel is decidedly anti-German and anti-Jewish (Germans, Jews, and spies being pretty much synonymous by then). "Capital," according to Scudder, "... had no conscience and no fatherland. Besides, the Jew was behind it... 'The Jew is everywhere, but you have to go far down the backstairs to find him... [I]f you're on the biggest kind of job and are bound to get to the real boss, ten to one you are brought up against a little white-faced Jew in a bath-chair with an eye like a rattlesnake. Yes, sir, he is the man who is ruling the world just now.'"

When Hannay cracks Scudder's code, and realizes the enormity of what the sleuth had discovered, he starts to see developments in Europe very differently: "The first thing I learned was that it was no question of preventing a war. That was coming, as sure as Christmas: had been arranged, said Scudder, ever since February 1912... The second thing was that this war was going to come as a mighty surprise to Britain... While we were talking about the goodwill and good intentions of Germany our coast would be silently ringed with mines, and submarines would be waiting for every battleship."


The North Sea coast: strategically vital



British insouciance is amply illustrated by Buchan in the person of Sir Harry, a Liberal candidate for Parliament, and one of the string of folks who rescues Hannay at crucial moments. He talks to a political gathering "about the 'German menace', and said it was all a Tory invention to cheat the poor of their rights... He said that, but for the Tories, Germany and Britain would be fellow-workers in peace and reform."

Similarly, when Hannay stumbles "into the enemy's headquarters" in Scotland, he speculates that the leading light -- the man with the snake eyes, and the devilish ability to cast a spell on others -- most likely "had letters from Cabinet Ministers saying he was to be given every facility for plotting against Britain. That's the sort of owlish way we run our politics in this jolly old country."

What, then, apart from this general anti-German flavour, and the heavy-handed suggestions that the government of the day was too soft and too cosmopolitan, is reminiscent of the Speyer case?

Well, the house with the 39 steps leading down to the beach, is in Kent, not Norfolk. But it sits on a big chalk headland; there are "a lot of villas on the top, and some of the houses have staircases down to a private beach. It's a very high-toned sort of place, and the residents there like to keep by themselves." Sounds very Overstrandy, it's true...


The view from the back of Sea Marge, the Speyers' Overstrand home




This complex, known as The Settlements, dates back to about 1913. Designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, it served as the stables, coach house, and laundry for Sea Marge

Buchan's cliff-top house "belonged to an old gentleman called Appleton, a retired stockbroker... [who] was there a good deal in the summer time... [He was said to be] a decent old fellow, who paid his bills regularly, and was always good for a fiver for a local charity." Speyer, you will recall, was known to be generous.

So... We have multiple identities, a house on the coast, high-level political connections, and generosity... Hardly overwhelming evidence for a connection, but maybe...

Our gallant hero ensures, of course, that the enemy agents are rounded up. But at least he shows a modicum of admiration for their ringleader. When he is confronted by the three perfectly camouflaged spies in this perfectly respectable English villa, Hannay feels "mesmerized by the whole place... the whole business". But he finally recognizes the trio he had first encountered in Scotland. Appleton "was sheer brain, icy, cool, calculating". Nevertheless, when Appleton's eyes "flamed with a hawk's pride", thinking his subterfuge had been successful, Hannay acknowledges: "This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot."

Conversely, another pair of literary characters, avowedly inspired by the Speyers this time, fail to evoke even grudging respect from their author.

Antony Lentin continues: "[I]n the persons of Sir Hermann and Lady Gurtner, E.F. Benson cast Edgar and Leonora as the melodramatic villains of his novel Robin Linnet, set in 1914. [It was published in 1919, and is also available from Gutenberg.] Benson portrays Sir Hermann, privy to secret information in July 1914, purchasing shares simultaneously in Vickers and Krupps, and includes such unlikely touches as the young Gurtner children singing Die Wacht am Rhein at bedtime."

I loved E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia novels, and was initially disappointed with the scene-setting in Robin Linnet, which seemed to totally lack the champagne sparkle of the well-known series. We're introduced first to Robin and his friends at Cambridge (superficial and annoying), and then to the clique of academics that teaches them (ultra-conservative and utterly insufferable).

The book perks up with the introduction of Lady Grote, Robin's mother. Actually, the novel's title is odd. I suppose Helen's eventual epiphany is brought about by Robin's influence, but the story is much more about her than about him. Hers is the interesting character that undergoes a painful evolution, whereas Robin remains a very one-dimensional figure.

Our first impression is of a clever but rather facile woman. A consummate socialite and entertainer, she throws house-party after house-party with great eclat. But her personal life is something of a desert. Her marriage apparently exists in name only, and her dalliance with a German opera singer seems unpromising from the start.

Underneath the dazzling success, there is, we are told, "an undertow of modesty". And there is an unidenitified darkness that eats away at her, a shadow that springs from "a certain obstinate, uninvited questioning as to what was the good of it all, this intense pursuit of distraction of any kind that frightened away tranquillity and leisure, this hot fever of living".

The guests at Helen's house-parties -- most of them "utterly idle people" -- found the luxury around them perfectly normal: "That was how things 'happened'; it was part of the indulgent constitution of the world that you moved quite naturally in so splendid a setting." The mainspring of the house-party is "a sort of Athenian irresponsibility: nothing mattered but the present hour, and the delight of 'some new thing'."


British country houses... Where would the novels of the nineteen-teens be without them?

As a result of two blows -- one personal, when she is dumped in the most humiliating fashion by her extraordinarily cruel opera singer; and one global, when war breaks out -- Helen eventually takes on a much more self-sacrificing and meaningful role as the manager of the hospital that her grand country-house has now become.

Yet she resists the pull of unreflexive jingoism: "She had lived far too cosmopolitan a life to have much sense of patriotism... The roots of her culture were too widely planted to enable her to say, 'It is from here my life comes, or from there.' ... [S]he found that in all the enthusiasms of her life there had been no touchstone applied that would record a permanent nationality. Just as she had never cared for class, so she had never cared for blood. It only mattered that it beat, and in her roused a beat in answer." She understands why Germany would act as it is doing.

We always read a book through the lens of our own age, and certainly the strangeness of that era -- when Europe teetered on the brink of all-out war, and then toppled over into the gulf -- reminds me a little of our own (though I acknowledge a global pandemic is much less horrific than a global conflict, and just hope that in our case one does not end up leading to the other...)

Helen experiences the beginning of the war like this: "A great chasm seemed to have opened in the world, and she found herself clinging to the edge of it... Far away across the abyss were the memories of past years, and if she turned her head to look at them there was no clearness about them... Barren and bleak was the edge she was clinging to, hideous was the desolated prospect that lay beyond it."

I have times like these at the moment, I must confess.

But when Helen finds a role in which she can make a contribution, she plunges forward: "The past was over and done with, and, after all, she had enjoyed her years enormously... But the past was over and done with in this sense also, that she felt there was no going back to it." Again, there's quite a contemporary resonance here.

Even before we are specifically introduced to the problematic Gurtners, a few anti-Semitic and anti-German barbs have been launched. For Helen Grote, "that which the House of Lords used to represent has gone elsewhere. Germans and Jews and Hittites -- whatever they are -- have got it"; Helen's house-party guests, "by forming a small Semitic syndicate", could have "bought up the rest of the crowd, had it been for sale".

But the Gurtners provide the major stage on which the theme of Germans-in-our-midst is played out.

Sir Hermann Gurtner is "a German Jew, like in appearance to a small London fog, all black and yellow". He has built an "enormous house in Curzon Street", and furnished it lavishly, according to criteria not of taste but of expense. He speaks English with a Yiddish accent, and is more at home speaking German.

Lady Gurtner, Aline, is half-German. She is new to the experience of riches (having originally been a governess). But in a manner very reminiscent of Leonora Speyer, Aline throws arty parties, attracting high-quality performers to her big music-room, often to debut the work of modern German composers.

She finds the idea of war between England and Germany "inconceivable". But Hermann is realistic: "Europe is like a dry stick to-day. Anything will make it catch fire, and just because Russia and France and this damned little island hate Germany! And why do they hate her? Because they fear her splendid power."

As Hermann thinks things through, over the course of the night when he learns that Germany is secretly mobilizing, he is suddenly aware where his sympathies lie: "'Der Tag' had dawned; faint and dim in the East were the lines of morning that portended the day for which all good Germans had been watching since their consciousness of the greatness of their nation had awoke in them... There would be years of trouble... but he did not doubt that at the end the world would pass into possession of his Fatherland."

Aline initially struggles with a conflict of identity, and for a while, she naively thinks she can continue to sit on the fence.

But it is clear where her heart lies. Speaking to the German ambassador about Kaiser Wilhelm II, she trills: "I can't tell your Excellency what a cult I have for that great and glorious man... He is what I mean by a king... [W]hen I think of the Emperor, I really am afraid that I forget I am English too." After the party, she acknowledges to herself "some call of the blood evoked by German talk, German guests, German singing and music".

In conversation with Robin and his friends, she unguardedly claims that Germany "is invincible: not all the armies of Europe could stand against her". She tries to walk her outburst back, but she has left an indelible impression on Robin: "I never liked her much, and to-day I didn't like her at all... She swanked about the German Army."

This is somewhat reminiscent of a passage quoted by Lentin, in which proms founder Sir Henry Wood recalls: "Just before they left this country, I was walking with Lady Speyer in Hyde Park. We watched one of the many units of young men marching and drilling. I remember Lady Speyer turning to me and saying: 'My dear Henry, how can these young, untrained boys hope to conquer our armies of trained soldiers? It is dreadful.'" In some ways, this is a very understandable sentiment. But it is easy to see why it could be considered less than discreet, given the circumstances.

Not surprisingly, Aline's attempts to "show an adoring England how intensely pro-English she was" rapidly come adrift. When Helen Grote goes to stay with her, Aline advertises her patriotism by noting that her "splendid" husband has given fifty thousand pounds to the Red Cross, and subscribes to countless county funds (here's this theme of unavailing generosity again). But she is incapable of hiding her true feelings. When Helen defends Britain's action in honouring its pact with Belgium, Aline rushes in: "But it was life and death to Germany... She had to invade Belgium! Her promise couldn't be held to bind her." She counters Helen's judgement on "German atrocities" with the assertion that the stories are "infamous lies", and the British press was "wicked" to publish such accounts.

(In fact, the Bryce report on accusations of atrocities left much to be desired. I guess it's unrealistic to expect to get to the truth of these matters while the conflict still rages, and propaganda points need to be scored.)

Helen's verdict is that Aline "had determined to profess the most English of attitudes, but at heart all her instincts were German, and they spouted and spirted like water through holes in a closed weir which had been shut against the force of the stream".

Her children, meanwhile, are constantly betraying German leanings in their play, their language, and their choice of songs.

It is certainly a very cruel portrayal, which doesn't really square with the evidence that Lentin and other have adduced.

Here's Lentin again: "A dozen years later, Benson evidently thought better of this unkind travesty, for he produced a far more sympathetic account of the true story in As We Are, published in 1932 shortly after Edgar's death. Yet even Benson assumed that the sentence pronounced on Edgar was just, in the belief that 'he associated with the pro-German party in New York... and identified himself with them in utterance and in deed'."

But I can't get hold of an electronic version of this second account, so will have to defer judgement.

So... all very illuminating. I wish I could say I thought this sort of thing wouldn't happen again. But I can't. These are not good days for cosmopolitans.